Kurtis McCathern

That's my original toy from when I was an 80s kid!

It's... um.... "well loved"... which is why it sits at the back.

Aww. Thanks, man.

Recognize the Lost Vikings statue back there you painted? I get asked about it every time a new person sees it.

You can be a game dev too, friend.

Everybody can be a game dev.

I always argue with myself over whether to do one of these posts: it seems like such an effective forum for challenging the "game devs are middle aged cis, white dudes" narrative and... well... I'm a middle aged cis, white dude.

But somewhere out there is a kid with a cleft lip who gets picked on.

An almost 50 year old cis white dude in glasses in front of a cabinet of toys and memorabilia from various IPs. He has a repaired bilateral cleft lip and short hair, and is wearing a blue tshirt.

So, here’s another #WhatAGameDevLooksLike. I’m Kurtis McCathern. Engineer. Currently at Magic Soup Games. Formerly on World of Warcraft. Your surrogate dad if needed. Everybody can make games.

Oh that’s my friend Montressor’s wine cellar

christians looking for jesus in every war we start, every missile we fire, every conquering despot we crown, and never in the one place jesus promised he could be found: among the poor, the starving, the oppressed.

But... music is reviewed like this?

Maybe the problem, hear me out, is our mistaken belief that reviews predict... anything about market success?

Read what this is in response to and then nod along. I love the AI tech bro "superintelligence is almost here" combined with "and we're gonna enslave it to work in our businesses just like we did/do humans."

Odysseus had his crew lash him to the mast to keep him from doing an interview with Chotiner.

This tweet brought to you by:

bsky.app/profile/icho...

Straight up - all'y'all who follow me or who are my friends....

If I ever say something like "@ichotiner.bsky.social offered to interview me" please help me go into hiding and change my name.

Full friend witness protection disappearance level. My family better not be able to find me.

Ruthless.

I’m backing Anne on this one. I think the regular violation of the second law of thermodynamics is more worrisome to Azeroth’s physics (and economic structure!) than gravity being wonky.

A wizard did it.

It's one reason one of my early incandescently mad moments about Trump was his promise to rip up the Iran deal. In my mind we had finally started turning the corner on the Iran cold war.

Let's be clear: the U.S. had a deal that could have prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Trump ripped up that deal.

Then he started a war instead of doing the hard work of diplomacy to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Posting this because I know Hegseth's comments are gonna make people sick, and we need to understand that Trump and Hegseth are evil - but there is a whole bushel of people who proposed this who also should share the blame. "The blob" theory of American military projection is real.

Look, I'm not an Iran scholar, but we've been at (cold) war with Iran my entire life - longer if you go back to the coup 1953 (and you should). There are analysts and intelligence folks who have wished they could "punch them while they're down" for decades.

We have to clean our own house.

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

Agree it's not perfect. Russian character with a Scottish accent, anyone?

The treatment of women characters in the Clancy books is... uneven at best. The movie just Bechdel'ed her away.

But to my mind it's still one of the best submarine movies made, up there with Star Trek II.

YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator

"Make people dependent enough, and then make it shitty"

Still giggling at this hilarious video from the Norwegian Consumer Council "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator" which seems a perfect embodiment of Silicon Valley and tech generally these days

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

Two movies based on books:

The Hunt for Red October
Jurassic Park (original)

When I worked at Blizzard, I often joked that all the news sites that wanted to know what the next cool project was should just hire people to sit at the bar at The Counter off Sand Canyon in Tustin during lunch.

I think it closed due to COVID.

This is 100% true, but - you ALSO change every 7-10 years. The trick is actively wanting to change together, not just let change happen.

Let the things that are influencing your partner influence you, and share the things influencing you with your partner.

Also, had a run in with a guy today that brought out a part of me I hate, and I'm reminded that notions of masculinity that are tied up in threats of violence are awful for everybody, and swimming in that culture does damage to us all, including the most masculine of men.

(wasn't patriotic)

I will say I wrote tons of shit then that I also hope is lost to time about how the Patriot Act wasn't as its corrosive nature would continue our transformation to a police state.

I was wrong about a lot, but I was right some, too. :-(

My stance in the blog post I wrote (which is hopefully lost to time, because I was an egotistical little snot) was "this is a bad idea - this has nothing to do with the war on terror. But Hussein is a bad guy and the Iraqis deserve freedom too."

Violence is the fabric of American history, sadly.

Look, I was a republican during the Iraq war. I reluctantly supported it (I'm sure a very dilligent search could turn up something I wrote defending the decision to do it.) Because I was young, naive, and drunk on the idea that "Iraqis deserve freedom, too."

It was fake then, and it's fake now.

YouTube video by Alex Mc Tony Benn in the House of Commons Iraq Bombing Speech

I found the longer speech, the whole speech is so heartfelt inappropriate now as well. youtu.be/HfXmpJRZPYI?...

This is just a suggestion but if you are doom scrolling right now I suggest you take a break from that and go listen to Florence Price's violin concertos right now because doom scrolling helps no one and holy shit those concertos are incredible